A network service is dependent on the amount of data it can send and receive from a source device to one or more destination devices. As such a network service is dependent on the resources it can utilize to transfer the data and on various parameters of these resources, such as uptime, outages, bandwidth, delay, loss, and jitter. For example, an e-mail service requires far less network resources than a video conferencing service because the e-mail service often has relatively little data to send and it is generally acceptable if an e-mail transmission is slightly delayed in transiting a network. On the other hand, a typical video conference requires enough network resources to send data constantly and seamlessly in two directions. If the network resources are simply shared between these two (and may be other) network services, the e-mail service will deliver e-mail extremely fast, but the video conferencing service would not be able to display a very clear picture.
A set of rules for allocating network resources between the various network services is called a “policy”. Policies are used for allocating network resources to services in a fair way, such that in the above example the video conferencing service receives more network resources than the e-mail services. In broad terms, policies distribute the network resources to services based on the type of service (e-mail, video, etc) and other factors, some determined through agreed upon attributes for network connections, often established as SLAs (service level agreements).
Today's network management applications are run and configured through policies that can be scheduled to operate over time. From time to time, it is necessary to change one or more policies. Since many policies can be used at the same time by different subscribers, or over a period of time, it is difficult for a network administrator/user to have an easy way to see what policy is being used at a specific time or a range of times. In addition, since the number of subscribers to a service is very large and continues to grow, network administrators/users have problems identifying policies that operate simultaneously and/or gaps of time where policies are operating. Both these situations will result in network problems if not corrected.
US Patent application 20040039803 (Law) entitled “Unified Policy-based Management System” describes a system for enforcing QoS defined by policy rules at a network node. The network management system employs a Policy Enforcement Agent (PEA) responsible for capturing a policy rule in flight and translating the policy rule to an actual policy enforcement action executable at a network node. The patent application mentions use of a GUI (graphical user interface) to schedule Policy Enforcement Agents (PEAs).
However, this US Patent Application does not provide any details of such how a GUI may be used for policy scheduling.
US Patent application 20030041139 (Beadles et al.) entitled “Event Management for A Remote Network Policy Management System” describes an event manager that provides dynamic response for the purposes of controlling policy updates, generation and deployment. Dynamic events are used to communicate the fact that policy changes/updates/creations have occurred.
However, this US Patent Application does not describe a GUI used for policy management. In fact, this reference describes placing a policy application under the control of an event management system that applies policies in response to the occurrence of events in the system. That is, policies are not applied according to a schedule, but rather they are applied dynamically in response to network events.
US Patent application 20020122422 (Kenney et al.) entitled “Central Policy Manager” describes a classification hierarchy used for characterizing network traffic at a high level both to allow measurements of network traffic and to describe a policy for each network QoS. An XML (extensible mark-up language) API (application programming interface) allows applications to manage a central repository of policies. Policies templates allow network QoS policies to be re-used across multiple links. Policy alarms can be raised by quality-of-service devices when a policy is violated. The policy manager describes associating a policy with a schedule, in tabular format, which sets the time when the policy should be enforced.
However, this US Patent Application does not address the problem of detecting and resolving policy scheduling problems such as policy application overlaps, referred to as “conflicts” and absences in policy application, referred to as “gaps”.